The U.S. is the Most Overworked Developed Nation in the World

We, as Americans, work too many hours. If you don’t believe so, check out the following data points that compare us to our peers around the world.

American Work-Life Balance

According to the Center for American Progress on the topic of work and family life balance, “in 1960, only 20 percent of mothers worked. Today, 70 percent of American children live in households where all adults are employed.” I don’t care who stays home and who works in terms of gender (work opportunity equality for all – it’s a family choice). Either way, when all adults are working (single or with a partner), that’s a huge hit to the American family and free-time in the American household.

The U.S. is the ONLY country in the Americas without a national paid parental leave benefit. The average is over 12 weeks of paid leave anywhere other than Europe and over 20 weeks in Europe.

Zero industrialized nations are without a mandatory option for new parents to take parental leave. That is, except for the United States.

American Average Work Hours:

According to the ILO, “Americans work 137 more hours per year than Japanese workers, 260 more hours per year than British workers, and 499 more hours per year than French workers.”

Using data by the U.S. BLS, the average productivity per American worker has increased 400% since 1950. One way to look at that is that it should only take one-quarter the work hours, or 11 hours per week, to afford the same standard of living as a worker in 1950 (or our standard of living should be 4 times higher). Is that the case? Obviously not. Someone is profiting, it’s just not the average American worker.

American Paid Vacation Time & Sick Time:

There is not a federal law requiring paid sick days in the United States.

In every country included except Canada and Japan (and the U.S., which averages 13 days/per year), workers get at least 20 paid vacation days. In France and Finland, they get 30 – an entire month off, paid, every year.

The Impact of Too Much Work

I’m not telling you to work less hours. If you genuinely love what you do and are doing it for the right reasons, you are more than entitled to spend all of your waking hours plugging away.

But for many of us, more work leads to more stress and a lower quality of life. Without time to unwind, take care of your home, spend time with loved ones, enjoy our hobbies, connect with friends, and generally live a more balanced life. Stress is the #1 cause of health problems – mentally and physically. And there are few things that stress us out on a consistent basis like work does, especially when it takes away from all of the other things that life has to offer.

Americans are the Outliers

And if all of this data tells anything, it’s that we are the outliers, not the norm. Why are we the outliers?

Our companies fairly ruthlessly let people go. We want to keep our jobs and not be a ‘low performer’ compared to others.

The decline of the union has led to less paid time off and other leave benefits.

Cultural value of money over everything else. We love money, we want more of it, and we think money can buy happiness. And the more we work, the more we get paid.

It’s been drilled in our heads that we are lazy compared to emerging market counterpart workers in India, Mexico, China, and other parts of Asia. Who isn’t? And what is our mental image of the work environments in those locales? To validate those fears, our jobs are being outsourced to the cheap labor in those countries. In reality, the U.S. trails only Norway and Luxembourg (2 tiny countries) productivity per person.

Our legislative branch of the government (on both sides of the aisle) has been bought and as a result has shied away from passing laws that protect workers that every other industrialized nation has passed.

We generally don’t fight for our working rights. We take what is given to us.

What we All Need to Remember

What we all need to remind ourselves is that it doesn’t have to be this way.

It’s OK to ask to move to fewer hours at work.

It’s OK to take a week-long vacation if we need to.

It’s OK to ask to work from home.

It’s OK to take a month of unpaid leave while you raise a child.

It’s OK… you get the idea.

Don’t let life pass you by in the name of fear, circumstance, greed, or misguided hopes. Sometimes you just need to draw a line in the sand and say “enough is enough”.

Overworked Discussion:

Do you think we work too hard?

Do you like the cultural norm around your workplace on working hour expectations?

310 Comments

I hate the work place standards in the US. Personally, my workload doesn’t actually require 40 hours per week, but my employer does. Everyday is a struggle to stay chained to my desk waiting for more work to come up. But I also think it’s ridiculous to require those people whose jobs could take over 40 hours a week to actually complete the work in that time. Just because we live in a world where you could work around the clock, communicating with people all over the world, doesn’t mean you should. We are not robots, we need a life.

That’s the mentality that’s killing people Nick. “Get tough.” “Don’t cry.” Why should people swallow that line? Because someone with a title says so? Because “that’s the way it’s always been?”

With the tech we have available, so many jobs can be done remotely and you can sustain profitability for a company with less time spent in the office. Its not 1847. These aren’t factories. You don’t need to keep your arse parked in a seat for 40-80 hours per week glued to a screen to do a job well.

I for one sincerely hope that members of my generation make overwork an open regulatory and political battleground. And I hope the overwork crowd loses badly.

It has all gone too far because people don’t shut down the people with the “work til you drop” mentality. They are scared something might happen. I ask “Like what? You’ll lose a shitty desk job chained to a spreadsheet?” Doesn’t sound like a loss to me. Sounds like liberation.

Those companies are loyal to NO ONE except their own bottom line.

I ask you Nick: Are you a share holder in a billion dollar company? Probably not right? Neither am I, but I have a follow up question: Why do you think you and so many others so vehemently defend the slave driver mentality? Why do you wish for a world where so many suffer needlessly in the name of a dollar?

It has to end and I do all I can to speak out against overwork and employer abuse. Our Federal laws allot for ZERO mandated days off. We work 499 hours more per year than some workers in Europe. That’s 60 full work days more. You’re OK with giving up your life and time to someone at the top of a company who doesn’t care if you get sick? If your family gets sick? If you just need to rest like a normal human being? Naw man… I am afraid your camp is squarley in the wrong.

The attitude tha work is supreme is indefensible at this juncture in our nation’s history given all that’s gone down in the last 30 or 40 years.

We can and we should do better by our workers. The rich have enough. We should give a crap less if we enrich them further at the expense of our own health.

P.s. you’re probably not a bad guy at all…. this isn’t meant to be a personal attack. I dont know you at all. I am just reacting to what you wrote.

I suspect you just drank some koolaid. I was the same as you 7 years ago. Then I experienced some horrible things at the hands of my corporate overlords. So, I stood up one day walked out.

I started a small business. It was a crazy amount of work to set up but now that it’s running and profitable, I have days where I work 3 hours and get all my stuff done. I am not a crybaby at all and neither are people who want to reclaim control over life and time. The corporate mentality will never change in our lifetime. Only we can liberate ourselves from their toxic, dangerous and unhealthy grasp. I wish for everyone in the US and around the world the freedom and flexibility a small business offers. Don’t forget peace of mind…Good luck to you and may you find what you are looking for.

Actually, if you have a retirement plan of any type, you likely are a shareholder in a billion dollar company.

Frankly, it is not the place of government to mandate days off, though most people have substantial vacation time and paid holidays (or comp pay/time if the holiday needs to be worked). I do not expect the CEO of my company to care if I get sick, or a family member becomes sick. I also am responsible for obtaining the rest I require.

Crikey, you Americans are so thoughtful, considerate and compassionate!!! NOT!

We can ALL have better lives if the owners of these multi billion dollar companies and their immediate circles weren’t so damned greedy!!! It is thanks to the hard work of all the people working for the company, that they have success, not due to the boss sipping coffee and chatting all day. Remember that.

If your running for office you have my vote. 32 hour work weeks are more than we should be working. 8 weeks vacation should be the norm. 8 weeks which means you still work 85 percent of the year. How is that asking for too much.

Please don’t take my ‘working mothers’ data point out of context as a statement that I think mothers should stay home. My point was to show that we’ve lost 50% of adults staying home with their children – whether it’s a man or woman. That’s a huge blow to work-life balance, but it’s almost a necessity these days. My point was that nobody is home with the kids anymore – man or woman – and that’s a shame.

Danielle… hush. Miller has a point. Have you actually looked around lately at the youth in america? Kids are growing up with no adults in the house because they’re too busy working 60 – 80 hours a week – some of them with no benefits or any vacation time because they could be contractors. As it seems most companies in the states don’t hire employees, they hire contractors so they don’t have to pay for benefits and vacation. They will however dangle that possibility in your face for years while you pound away 12 hours a day.

Flame me if you want but if you compare our lives with our european counterparts who are getting upwards of 40 bank holidays a year (not counting vacation time)… american life is the absolute suck.

Unfortunately William “moving” is not that easy. See, we here in the US let anyone come in because the corporations are always looking for the cheaper labor – since there are laws in other countries that protect the workers (read TAXPAYERS) they aren’t interested in an open borders policy because they don’t want to end up like us.

If the policies in this country change at some future point to where YOU are dissatisfied, is “move…” an answer you’d accept and something you’d do? If so then I would say that’s pretty cowardly of you.

I agree with Neil 100%. It’s so easy for someone to say if you don’t like it, just move. Honestly, I would if I could. But my husband and I have married children, our parents, siblings and other relatives. You can’t just expect someone to uproot their entire life. Most middle class Americans in this country are frustrated, fed-up, exhausted, and stressed out. But truly, there is nothing we can do about it. It’s the American way and we are stuck! Not by choice, but by chance.

“This is very important — to take leisure time. Pace is the essence. Without stopping entirely and doing nothing at all for great periods, you’re gonna lose everything…just to do nothing at all, very, very important. And how many people do this in modern society? Very few. That’s why they’re all totally mad, frustrated, angry and hateful.”
― Charles Bukowski

Kim your too nice. No need to explain. In short its imptactical to just move for everyone or just or find a job you love, right!,. Come on William be real. There are down right shit jobs that need to be done and trust me they are not being done out of passion.

Don’t move, change the playing field. That’s what made America great and that is what corporations pay big money to do to the working class every day. They change the playing field. They hire lobbyists and pay off politicians. We should model corporations to be more like those in Germany, which is what they were like in the 1950’s and 1960’s here in the U.S. CEO’s salaries weren’t as large in comparison to workers’ salaries, and unions mattered. How did unions become synonymous with “Marxism” and being leftist? Its’ a crock of dung that the top 1 percent has all of the assets and representation. It is sad that a conservative, working class person has to apologize for sounding like a leftist, and thinks unions are bad. It’s brainwashing. American corporations think they have rights like people do. They want to hire foreign slave labor and to circumvent all of the labor laws, environmental laws and checks and balances that our families have worked so hard to establish.

Whatever dude. I’m a welder and the company I work for requires 7 day work weeks… Constantly. There is never a weekend where they do not ask their workers to come in. Something needs to change. No human being should be subject to this much labour. It’s pathetic. Our country will never catch up with the rest of the world so as long as people like you keep saying “move.” Either you are lucky and only work 40 or less hours a week or you are perfectly content with the fact that American workers are modern day slaves.

Except for this, European unemployment rates have run roughly twice the uS rate moving in lock step together for decades. Sure, it sounds great to have all that extra time, but when you become too expensive to the employer, jobs are lost. o ahead, everyone go work and i’ll do the same

Normally the system dependes on a few well educated key people to work alot to develop the Product/service combination then “normal” people in sales, purchasing, production, Brand- and Product- managers, regional managers, warranty, logistics, sourcing… are needed

One of my best friends took a job in Germany and the law there is you can’t work more than 44 or 48 hours per week(I forget which one).

He said maybe a couple weeks of the year he works past 40 and gets an automatic 2 weeks paid vacation his first year he went there.

I’m only 25 and for the jobs I’ve had, it’s ridiculous the amount of hours I’ve worked. All of the tier 1 automotive companies usually are at a minimum of 50 hours a week, like people are saying here, even desk jobs are working 48+.

I hope we take after the euro way in terms of work/life culture.

It’s hard to work a 10-12 hour day, go home, work out, eat and repeat the same process day in and day out. I don’t know about anyone else in the manufacturing work type but for me, even at work, I’m thinking about the next day and what I can fit in to those hours I get after work.

Can you please send the source/citation for this statement:
In the U.S., 85.8 percent of males and 66.5 percent of females work more than 40 hours per week.
I clicked on the link but did not see where the information was originally taken from.

Just wanted to point out that a change of “20% of mothers working” to “70% of children having mothers who work” does not necessarily translate to a “more than 50% increase.”

Strictly speaking, it’s entirely possible that the number of mothers who work also have more children (on average) than mothers who do not work. It’s also entirely possible (though unlikely) that the number of children with working mothers has DECREASED, given the available statistics.

It seems impossible to draw the line because employers are strapped and continually demand more. It is much harder to cut back then to push forward. Having the ability to cut your work load is a difficult task especially for a salary employee.

These statistics give me hope that America will continue to be the great country that it already is. I am glad that Americans, on average, work harder than every other developed country in the world. It means that we as a nation will continue to innovate, to create, and to protect the lifestyle we have come to enjoy.

I have worked all over the world, and the level of workplace exhaustion and psychosis I have seen here is unequaled. Also, the majority of the “work” that is done is completed at break-neck speed, with little or no regard for quality. To top it off, the much-touted high standard of living equals, in fact, may hours spent in the car commuting, with no time left for friends or hobbies.

Exactly. The only ones getting ahead are the top dogs. Everyone else is just running on the treadmill. We know it’s a matter of time
before we have stress-related health issues.
The career gurus say to quit your job. Easy to say, but there are so few jobs out there.

The lifestyle that we have come to enjoy? Sure, I live in a comfortable 800 sq. ft. apartment in a peaceful, country setting and have more than what is an absolute necessity for life. Now if only I could find a way to enjoy my home for more than sleeping and 2 additional hours of my day. Working an average of 60 hours a week leaves me with little time for much of anything beyond work. There is little time to spend with my husband, friends, or family, on my hobbies, or even getting my laundry done at some points. I can’t even imagine raising a family with this kind of work schedule. I feel exhausted and stressed out because of the pace of my job. Even when I’m not working, my brain is still on-the-job. How can this be considered an enjoyable lifestyle? Now to top it all off, I am a teacher, which means that I actually get a bit of reprieve from this workload and work less hours during the summer months. I can’t imagine working 60+ hours a week every single week of the year.

I feel like you do. It’s like a trap and there are no options. People say quit and find another job. There are no other jobs, and even if we could find one, it probably would be the same.

I notice the gap between the people who have a lot of time on their hands, and those who are working like we do…is getting greater. So is the gap between those working and not working. And the gap between the intelligent and the unintelligent is getting larger too. The intelligent are doing the work.

You must be an employee of the financial industry! I say this because massive debt offered by the banks coupled by the near zero percent interest rates given those banks by the FED is partly why people have to work 60 to 80 hours a week while our government does nothing – having just returned from a 10 day vacation and taking this Friday off.

Wouldn’t it be interesting if the American people stood together and all chose to go into their offices ONLY when Congress was in DC – and went on “vacation” when they weren’t in session and effectively shut the country down.

Why don’t we see how long we can function when we don’t show up for work en-masse like Congress does most of the time?

I think we are overworked. I have not work in one company where at least 75% of my co-workers were not addicted to coffee aka the working man’s crack. How come we don’t have a siesta like Spain? I think that would help a lot of people if they were able to rest in the middle of day. Then we won’t have so many people addicted to the working man’s crack. I think we should also restructure idea of work. I hate the 8 hour work day. If we are honest with ourselves, we probably actually work 5 hours a day while at work. The other 3 hours are hours where we are surfing the net or doing something else unrelated to work. I read an article in More magazine about the restructuring the way we work. They gave examples of companies that allowed employees to set their own hours. These companies actually had better productivity rates.

Because they are trying to squeeze every single drop out of us while they can.
That’s how the owners are millionaires.
They don’t care about us, and if one of us falls down, they have someone else waiting in the wings.
Slavery takes many forms.

Argentina is the only country that still has siesta really. They also go back to work until like 7 or 8pm and eat dinner at midnight, start dancing at 2am, and the clubs open seven days a week at 4am. I think siesta is the only time they actually sleep.

As already posted on the comments on the wp source, that graph is wrong. The Uk changed to 24 in 2007, and 28 in 2009, effectively covering the national holidays, so if you get them all off you get a minimum of 20, if you work them you get 28.

There’s a few factors at play here. One is salary/wages have stayed the same, while cost of living has exploded, in almost every state. To live on your own, you NEED to make $50-$60K a year to reasonably live, and even then, in some parts of the country, that isn’t enough. And if you are salaried, which the bulk of jobs that pay over $50K are, unless you run your own business, chances are very high that you will work mad overtime, without compensation. If you make less than $50-$60K a year, you could live by yourself, but chances are, you living paycheck to paycheck.

In my opinion, to have the american dream, the same one alot of people enjoyed in the 1950s, you have to work 10-15 times as hard as they did. These days, i’ve noticed getting a house, and making mortgage payments really turns heads in a bar or in any social setting. I wonder if they were

Also, it is very good business practice from a CEOs perspective to have few workers who work 60-70 hour weeks, instead alot doing 35-40. Less overhead means more profits. Think of when CEOs raise their own salaries while doing mass layoffs. The effect at a company is nobody says shit, gets scared, and works much harder to prove they are valuable. I think it’s one of the greatest tactics in increasing productivity in your workers without increasing, and in some cases, lowering compensation.

I totally agree with this guy too, America doesn’t get pissed about workers rights. They get more pissed about tax raises.

But this is a very general opinion of mine, based on what I know, so take it for what you will.

I think this is deplorable, but it is something we are doing to ourselves. In 1950 the average house size was close to 1000 sq ft. Now it is closer to 2000 sq ft. Also we insist on having two cars and going out to eat regularly and many more extravagances. If we returned to simple living we wouldn’t need two incomes or long work weeks.

My husband and I recently went from a two income household to a one income household when I became pregnant with our son. We downsized our house from 2050 sq ft to 1300 sq ft, got rid of one car, we eat home cooked meals, and cut out most of our consumer spending. Despite living on only 60% of the income (now only 36k/yr) we had before, I believe our quality of life has improved.

Americans’ commitment to long hours reflects our values as a society. People would rather work more and have more things than free time. Until we value free time more than money, I doubt much will change.

Natalie you are acting like the typical family that already has everything. What about the people that say had dental work done that cost 20k and you lost your job and were out of work for almost a year and then play catchup on credit cards. Why sell one of your cars as you will sure as hell lose the value and not get nearly back what you paid for it. These small cutback wont replace a salary. Maybe its because the person you or your spouse made so little it didnt make much a dent. This thinking is very unrealistic for the majority of the working class. I live in a one bedroom apartment both me and my wife work and have no kids. We are stuggling and hardly do anything like go out to eat or go on a trip. Wake up to the reality most americans face.

jm your comment to natalie is totally correct. i dont know what planet shes on. i end up working at Lonestar at age 30 and they make me salad guy for 8 an hr. i bust my ass with no training and then the bosses say i need to do fry station too so i say ok BUT THEY REFUSE TO TRAIN ME IM JUST SUPPOSED TO DO IT?? so i tell the boss that i want to be dish guy and left alone. i tell him that his bunch of assclown cooks are a bunch of pricks and i just want some goddamn peace. i tell him im 30 and have done manual labor bullshit for 12 years and i just want to be left in peace. so what does he do? he makes me do dishes and tacks on sweeping the parking lot,mopping the entire restaurant, cleaning the bathrooms,doing food prep, assisting servers, and then after that help out IF I CAN DOING SALADS AS WELL!!! AND PEOPLE WONDER WHATS WRONG WITH LIFE AND THIS COUNTRY??? ASSHOLES LIKE THIS THAT WORK YOU DOING 5 DIFFERENT JOBS FOR $8 AN HOUR!!! I had a $500 rent to pay and i could never pay it thanks to this Animal Farm society.

I don’t know where you live but where I live the difference between cost of living and wages is extremely high. I actually don’t know a single person who was able to successfully move out of their parents home before 26. My brother’s girlfriend works nearly full time (she is still doing school one or two classes at a time) and can still barely afford her one room apartment, and that’s low income housing! Which is limited, good luck qualifying as half the city seems to need it. People are stuck.

And in my household we do need at least two cars. I take the bus now and then but when I do graveyard shift there aren’t exactly buses running at that hour, and I’m not about to ride my bike 15miles at 3am, especially as a girl and especially in an area that has a growing crime issue if all the tagging and break ins are anything to go by.

I completely agree and have had to reevaluate my free time over money. I always thought I needed more money to survive because I kept hearing that other people made more than me but lived paycheck to paycheck. HOW was this possible? I grew up with a very strong sense of saving and investing. At 13 I worked. By 15 I realized that life was more than the stuff that I owned. Because my parents were immigrants and invested I have what I have today.
By 26 I owned a 1300 sq ft townhome (with my mother). It’s fully paid off because my mother was smart enough to have us invest in this. Both my parents are 56 and have been in the US since they were 18 or 20 making server wages, sometimes just making $60/day. They saved. They invested. They are working 2 to 3 days a week now and do have back problems from serving, but they are ready to retire.
I mention all of this because I had to step back and realize that I don’t need to make as much money as my peers that live paycheck to paycheck because I don’t need fancy sh*t. I paid off my car but it’s a Hyundai. I will take more free time to enjoy my life, have hobbies and more hours in a day spent doing what I want over making more money but having no time to enjoy it.
At the end of the day and my life what will I have to show from all this “work”? Oh, I owned a lot of fancy stuff that I can’t even enjoy because I had to work to maintain them. Doesn’t sound like a life to me. BUT I say this because my parents put me in the position that I am today. Not so well off but you know what, it actually is pretty well off to be so SIMPLE.

Family values! Middle Class wages in the US have been stagnant since the early 1970’s. To make up for wage stagnation women in most households went to work and Americans started working longer hours. But this was not enough. So families started tried to refinance their homes during the real estate bubble or, during rough times, borrow with credit cards. Family costs have increased- for health care, for houses, for child care, college, and retirement. And all this at a time when risk for individual families has increased- where once there were pensions now everyone who is lucky enough to have retirement has it in the volatile stock market or in their now collapsed house value.

While all this is going on for Middle Class families- forget the poor, they are now destitute- the richest 1% increased their incomes 400%. They are now richer then they have been in over 80 years and they pay lower taxes than in any other developed country. In short, all the productivity growth and all the tax cuts over the last 40 years has been done for the benefit of the top 1% of earners.

They have taken control of the white house. Enjoy the shitshow. Trump scared the hell out of me and I am so glad I kissed that country goodbye before this (family reasons) and am in Europe. I love the US- on my vacations.

But good luck for all of you still in the gutter! Maybe this term will be when people finally demand something better, when conditions get so bad and exploitative that people will not take it any more.

Or just vote democrat next campaign. And live the rollercoaster again, only with some token help like Obamacare.

Speaking as one working in an entry-level position doing customer service at a bank call center, wanting to take vacation time is frowned upon, and actually needing to take sick leave actually counts against a person when trying to get a promotion. Part of our statistics is how much unscheduled leave (aka times a person has called in, sick or otherwise) one has taken. Even if a person has the time available for sick leave, if one has to take it and call in, that person is considered undependable and will be passed over for projects and promotions. Personally, I believe such practices are incredibly unfair to those who choose to exercise their right to use their sick days and paid time off. The choice seems to be: further your career or take care of your health. I, for one, don’t like it.

And of course those requiring such rarely apply it to themselves. For years I worked for a boss that was constantly pressuring people to work longer and harder for nothing, of course that was when he himself bothered to show up. And you know those rich assholes at the top probably have more vacation days than working days. Greedy hypocritical assholes.

Yeah. On a side note, I know a person over in Europe who had to take sick leave for months, and… yeah she still has the job. Her employer isn’t happy per se about it, it’s just that if they fired her over it it would be court-fu time.

I remember the first time I ever read that the USA has no Labor Law pertaining to paid vacation time and I thought that what I was reading was inaccurate but upon further confirmation I realized it was a fact.

But then again America worships the climb to the top, even though once you get there you find out it may not have been worth it.

I get 4 paid weeks holidays but I am a Unionized employee working for a private employer. Because my job requires a fair bit of Overtime I also take 2 weeks ‘Leave of Absence’ unpaid, every year. The LOA is easily taken because we have a slow period starting in the first week of Dec until March.

When I was 20 something(and now at the end of 40 something) I had lofty goals but as the years go by you start to realize and appreciate what you have and that life is short so why kill yourself trying to reach some lofty goal that may never come….just make the best of it and try to make the future better for the next generation……….

I joined a union my first week on the job at the age of 17. Got stuck in that job after college because the economy collapsed. Still there eleven years later. Thanks to the union, I have thousands of dollars less than I otherwise world have. And they still won’t issue my health insurance care card, even though they deduct money from each paycheck. Oh, and I could fill a landfill with all of the Obama and Hillary propaganda that they were nice enough to send me.

i personally have stopped caring about “making it” i used to want the american dream but hell it is an impossibility. im just gonna be like bukowski and get a wine bottle and head off to a country that is worth a damn and the people dont act like materialistic, heartless pricks 24/7 always lieing to you some more and dangling that carrot. i know one boss who was pissed because he only had 1 bonus that year instead of 2 for “not implementing efficient working practices with employees” AKA only giving employees 2 jobs to do instead of 3 for their $9 an hr. this country is shot im out 🙂

I never had much of a desire to climb the ladder, but it seemed out if my hands since where I was at wasn’t paying the bills. My parents were very motivated to climb the ladder just so they wouldn’t have to struggle by day to day. A lot more people would be satisfied where they’re at if they could actually afford to live off of it.

It doesn’t help when your jobs keep getting outsourced to cheaper labor. Illegals are also causing a lot of issues here. Everyone says crap like they do jobs Americans won’t. Not true, it’s merely that Americans can’t afford to compete with someone who will work for half the amount under the table. So many guys we used to know in the roofing business who were doing well for many years making good money and owning their own business, until they could no long compete with the guys hiring only illegals. Half them went out of business, the other had to severly cut back their crew. And then to be told that you’re a lazy American who is unwilling to work hard long hours in the sun is very insulting. I could do that, are you willing to pay me enough to actually have a place to live and food to eat at the end of the day? We had a family down the street that had like at least 8 adults living there and I have no idea how many kids. Well ya I could afford this wages too if I had 7 other people helping with the bills, especially if they’re all related to me. How the hell are others suppose to be able to compete with that?

Very well stated on the immigration issue. Of course illegals willing to do the job at half what you would want are forcing the labor wages down. It’s exactly as you stated. It is not that we are afraid to work but we simply cannot afford to live at those wages. When you have 8-10 adults living in the same house and sharing the load because it is still better then what they came from, so no big deal. That drives wages down and the standard of living with it. People wrongly surmise that illegals are in the farm industry only. They are providing cheap labor for any job that requires muscle.

I swear after reading so many ‘positive’ comments about our situation that there are a number of people who post over and over again using different names claiming this is good for the people or our country.

I came across a page the other day on a ‘weak’ looking Cheney and his wife hosting a discussion and gave up reading the comments after the first 10 mind-numbingly called Dick Cheney ‘an american patriot’ and a ‘hero.’

I do not believe American’s are victims. I choose to work 50 hours a week. It bothers me greatly that you all feel that you are victims. 40 hours a week is nothing!! What the heck can’t you get done in the rest of your time?

Brandy, your job must consist of sitting on your bum at work all day long. Try physical labor for a change and then talk. People with your mentality are the ones who support this chaotic rat rance in the American Labor Force.

This is the kind of stuff that every American needs to know. We are getting *screwed* in this country by the corporate power system. If the average idiot tea party fool had any idea of what he was fighting for… more corporate power… less worker rights. I mean… what if they realized that they are fighting against themselves?

Demanding all those things that other industrialized countries have will price yourself right out of the market. The US already has the second highest corporate tax rate in the world. If we were to lower it down to the levels of other industrialized countries, we would see a flood of jobs flow into the US instead of out of.

Post WW2, with high union membership, high marginal tax rates, and full employment is not the norm, even though generations have grown up seeing it that way. It is easy to thrive in that environment when you are the only country left on earth with intact industry and literally every country on earth needs your product. However, that is not the case anymore. The American workforce needs to be competitive, and due to the high taxes on companies, we are already starting at a huge disadvantage.

And I’m sorry, I’ve known FAR too many people from Japan. Saying that Americans work more hours than Japanese people has to be a lie.

I agree with this article. but i still don’t know what to do about it or if there’s anything that i can. if i ask my boss to let me work from home, he gives me this lecture about how it’s important not to loose productivity and that if he let’s me work from home, he will have to do the same with everyone else!

I’m canadian. We receive 1 year of parental benefits. As well, if your doctor allows it, you are entitled to 12 weeks sick leave benefits, for a total of 64 weeks potential parental leave. The dollar amount isn’t that great, only to a max of 55% of $43k, but you can purchase private insurance that will top you up to 90% of your gross.

As for holidays, we have 12 statutory holidays (all employers are required to give) and typical start off at 3 weeks paid per year, 4 if management.

For sick leave, I receive 1.5 days per month worked.

However, with all of the above said, I typically work a 50 hour week (I’m management), I never take sick days because the thought of coming back to my desk afterwards terrifies me. I only took 6 months of my parental benefits because of a private arrangement with my employer that they would top up my benefits to my previous take home IF and ONLY if I came back sooner verses later.

It’s all about an individuals drive for success. I have the benefits, but choose not to use them for the dream. I enjoy the nice home, I enjoy the fact that I have a vacation property. I appreciate the money I can put away for my retirement and my children’s college funds. Do I work hard? Yes, I do. Are the results worth it? Yes, they are. Oh, for the record, I am a single mom to two year old twins. It’s only me, and if I have to sacrifice some personal time to provide my family with the best I can – so be it.

Some of these comments are truly sad. Some people have really drunk the Kool Aid. The average American does not live in a big house or enjoy the plentitude that some suggest. There are many industrialized countries with a higher median standard of living than we have in the US. These statistics are only the tip of the iceberg when you start investigating this stuff. The fact is that we work our asses off not to buy ourselves boats and big cars but to buy them for our bosses, the tiny fraction of the population that have grown hugely rich by dismantling the social benefits that we once enjoyed.

Yes, hedge-fund managers who work 80 hour weeks are amply rewarded, but they aren’t what drives these stats. Its waitresses and home health aides and meat packers who work two or three jobs and never see their kids and still live from paycheck to paycheck.

George Carlin got it right: Its called the American Dream because you have to be asleep to believe it.

finally there is someone on here who has a fucking clue. When are people gonna get the truth and stop kidding themselves. WE ARE GETTING FUCKED PEOPLE!!!! GET IT!!!! WHEN YOUR BOSS GOES ON 5 VACAYS A YEAR AND DRIVES A LEXUS AND JUST SENT HIS 2 KIDS TO PRIVATE SCHOOL AND LIVES IN A GATED COMMUNITY AND HAS MONEY TO SPARE WHEREAS YOU LIVE IN AN APARTMENT AND HAVE A CAR FROM 1992 AND CAN HARDLY PAY FOR FOOD, RENT, GAS, AND THE ELECTRIC BILL, MAYBE THEN YOU ASSCLOWNS WILL GET A CLUE AND UNDERSTAND WHY YOUR POOR AND STOP BEING IDIOTS WHO TAKE IT AND ASK TO GET FUCKED EVEN MORE EVERYDAY. TAKE A STAND ALREADY. FIGHT FOR A LIFE. DEMAND IT.

Americans played golf on the moon more than 30 years ago for crying out loud. The Center for American Progress – good Lord. Bottomnline no one asked people in the USA to work longer and harder than they should in comparison to the Euro benchmark. I’m sure the $70 an hr (wages benefit package) that a UAW earns to bolt the door onto a substandard Jeep Cherokee isn’t complaining.

I think the commenter who argues that a parent should be able to not take maternity leave/parental leave if they want proves my point, in some sense … its your children vs. your job, and you want to be able to choose your job? Really? And this makes you think nothing is askew about our priorities?

I’m not sure it’s necessarily the right decision (and I don’t think it’s the right priorities), but it should be the parent’s choice, not the state’s. Legally we give wide latitude to parents in how they raise children: what they eat, how they’re disciplined, what religion they are or aren’t taught, which decent school they attend, and so on. I don’t see why this particular instance warrants an exception.

I also suspect there are jobs which are so sensitive to employee absence that they simply can’t tolerate the extended absence of parental leave. Rather than essentially prohibiting such jobs, it seems better to leave it up to employer and would-be employee to mutually conclude that, if there may be a possibility of newfound parenthood in the near future, the would-be employee should accept another position or job. I’d fit the profile for such a job at the moment (multiple years out, perhaps not); others wouldn’t. Some jobs just aren’t for everyone.

The information for France is incorrect. As a general rule we work 217 days a year. Since the work week is 35 hours, when you are not on a per-hour basis you get about 20 days extra (it’s complicated to explain in details). Anyway – the number of days off is about 42 per year (work days). This is a month a a half off, with 10 continous compulsory days (you have to take 2 weeks off in a row).
It is strictly forbidden to interfere with vacations – all have to be taken by June each year.

I have worked for 15 years for a very, very large US company (I was employed in Europe). The US office was empty at 5 PM. People in France go back home about 7-8 PM.

I guess that the numbers provided are more or less random — but that’s fine as “work” also differs from company to company and position to position.

They might go home at 5pm in the American office and 7-8pm in the French, but I am curious what time they come in. My dad comes home anywhere from 4-6pm in the evenings, he leaves for work by 6:30 though, he wakes up at 5:30. He says though he prefers it this way because when he comes home from work he feels like he still has some of his day left to get things done at home or just relax. If he was working from 8:30-8pm instead then he feels all he is doing is waking up to work and then coming home and sleeping not enough hours of free time in row to enjoy.

The 35 hours work week was indeed intended to be a cure for unemployement (it depends what “massive” means – it was about 8% at that time). The idea would be that the remaining 5-8 hours per week would be filled in by the unemployed (in average).
This did not work out (we are at slightly below 10%) but the 35 hours stayed, together with the extra days off.

The problem is that while that might help the unemployed get a job it screws over the person working that many hours and still barely making it by, how is cutting their hours back doing anything but screwing them over unless they raise wages to compensate. Some people are barely making it as is. They haven’t been raising wages properly in all these years and I doubt they will start without their arms being twisted behind their backs.

While I don’t support overworking like this article is talking about, I have think that the French work week numbers might be flawed. Wasn’t France experimenting with mandatory work furloughs because of massive unemployment?

The big “innovation” in the French system is that you keep working around 39h/w, but the official week work duration is 35h.
Each month, the extra 4 hours add up to a certain amount of full days off you can take if you need ever to go and see a doctor, have a sick child or just want to go shopping.

The socialist theory behind it is that there is a set amount of total work hours and that companies would hire to compensate the difference.

Of course this is bu**t and didn’t change anything to unemployment figures.
It’s actually more confortable for people who already have jobs, but most lost any entrepreneurial skill they could have.

Everyone is working so hard to pay off their debt. I bet you could find a correlation between the time debt became more widely used and when more people in each household started working.

I don’t think we need the Government stomping in telling everyone how often or how long they can work though. You just fine the crap out of the employer that was being abusive to keep him from taking advantage of workers down the road.

We certainly don’t need the Government that can barely handle the responsibility they have now, put more regulations on the table. They’re most of the reason people go out of business or go overseas to run their company. To force a company to pay a woman’s maternity leave for up to 20 weeks is absurd. Some time is needed but not 20 weeks. That’s something that should be negotiated in the hiring process. It’s why they’re called benefits.

Brad, I do take some acception to your statement that there is to much government. This has become the montra of the republicans so that they can reduce regulations that protect workers and ship jobs overseas. The deregulation that started in the 80’s is what got us in this mess today. While I do agree that 20 weeks may be excessive there needs to be some type of limit set to help parents of new borns so that they don’t feel as though they will loose there job should they take time off from work. If getting out of debt was only as easily done as we all would like to think I doubt most of us would continue to have some. We need to remember that 50% or more of the work force is just one paycheck from getting behind on payments. We all like to blame government but who is the government? Isn’t it us?

@ Stu/Brad –
I don’t want to make this a political debate, but I think you are both on to something, but I have a slightly different take on it. Brad is correct in that getting out of debt can free us, and it takes a lot of hard work to get there, in addition to living humbly.

At the same time, de-regulation is one of the big reasons that got us in to so much debt in the first place. And had our government protected us more all along, we wouldn’t have to work so hard to get out of all the debt. Business, when not regulated properly, will operate in unethical ways in order to profit. Need proof? Financial crisis. The banks and their political friends spent decades de-regulating the industry and then finding reasons to get people in to mortgages that they could not afford. I work with someone who worked at Countrywide Financial (which went under b/c people couldn’t pay back the gaudy loans they had and the homes had to be foreclosed), who said that underwriters were told to take the attitude to ‘look for a reason to approve someone for a loan’ vs. ‘look for a reason not to approve someone’. He said it was a joke amongst everyone and they all knew it was unethical. Guy has held a steady job for two months? Approved for $500,000! Banks convinced everyone they could afford more than they could, which inflated home prices for everyone, resulted in the foreclosure crisis, and put many banks under. De-regulation (or lack of it in the first place) mixed with a poorly financial educated consumer base are the reasons for the financial crisis.

Credit card companies? Look what de-regulation resulted in there. The onus of responsibility is on our governments to protect us from unethical business practice. When they don’t? We all pay, in one way or another. Businesses won’t do it on their own and there aren’t enough of us who are smart enough to wade through all of the traps.

With all of that being said, I think there are other reasons why we are overworked and being in too much debt is just a small part of it.

its all government, not regulations. our problem stems from the federal reserve lending out 16 trillion in 2008 to banks, effectively crushing the value of the dollar. pay raises do not happen enough to fight the inflation.

and then taxes. we pay a minimum of 40% of all money earned back to the government.

In a way, it does look like wage slavery. One objective indicator of wage slavery, in my opinion, would be the percentage of workforce actually having two or more jobs or wishing they had. What a second job really means is that people are willing to part with an increasingly scarce resource (quality time, a.k.a worthwhile life) without due monetary compensation in the form of overtime pay.

I disagree…or at least question your understanding of a well educated and well informed customer:

All you need to do is throw out loads of BS out that means nothing, and an educated well-informed consumer will stop wasting time trying to figure out what is up, down, left, or right. They will start to make decisions based on personal experience, and BAM.. .all you need to do is keep filling them with BS and they’ll keep using your product.

It’s what advertisers, companies, and politicians have done for a long time. Well-informed is something America does not specialize in.

unless the market is limited and youre the only supplier or a product that is needed.

patents need to be more vigorously regulated, as it stands its a big problem.

there are companies who file for bogus patents, which get approved for whatever stupid reason, who charge small amounts of money to developers to use what they “own”, so its cheaper for the million companies that this effects to each pay the nickle instead of paying for a lawyer to fight against it.

right now there are so called “patent trolls” who do this with just about everything, apple is one, they are trying to say that other companies cant make rectangular phones because they were the.. well maybe not the first, err not the second, but they were there somewhere, and they made a phone, and it was rectangular, and now no one else can make a rectangular phone, or black either, their phones were black, so no one else can make black phones.

and what apples doing is just the tip of the ice burg, i dont know your background (so im not sure how technical i can be, ill assume no knowledge of software development), but many software companies cant make their products anymore unless they get the go ahead from some of these patent trolls: its been said that being a software developer today is like trying to operate a store without doorways, because theyre the one who ‘invented’ doorways, you know the thing that you walk through, ya that thing, you cant use one unless you pay me $10 every time someone walks through that doorway.

just look at how patenting has skyrocketed in the last few years by certain companies and you’ll see who the culprits are, microsoft has something like 15k patents, apple has something like 10k patents, how many do they need to be successful in their business? well lets look at one of the most successful software companies in history, google has something like 600 patents

Speaking of long work weeks, I work in an industry here in the US where they legally don’t have to pay overtime until you reach 60 hours. This rule, in the trucking industry is meant for the long haul, over the road drivers that put in 14 hour days, however the freight companies get away with using it for their dock workers, office workers, and hourly city drivers as well. My company has everyone scheduled for five ten hour shifts a week, and nobody is allowed to go over sixty hours, because their policy is to not pay OT at all.

Here’s an idea. How about instead of complaining about a job that doesn’t meet your expectations, you find a job that will?

The Fair Labor Standards Act “REQUIRES overtime to be at least one and one-half times an employee’s regular rate of pay after 40 hours of work in a workweek.”

If the company you work for is breaking that law they should be reported.

More importantly, why would you want to change a company policy and still work for the same evil people that were breaking the law in the first place? Why not report them and go work for someone a little more honest.

Also a company is not bad for not wanting to pay overtime, only for allowing people to work overtime and not pay them properly for doing it.

@BRAD… thanks for that great idea. After rereading my post however, I don’t think is sounds like complaining, more like informing. I work for a great company, and they are well within the legal parameters for doing this. It is not so cut and dry, where all employers must offer overtime pay after 40 hours a week. If you go to the US labor law website you will see there are certain exemptions. Furthermore, if they were an OT after 40 company, then they would limit my hours to just that, so I am fortunate for the ability to put in more time some weeks when the extra cash is needed.

I do thank you though for your general concern for my well-being, although I am quite worried about you if your only options for 10:22 on a Sunday morning are to pick fights with random people on blogs.

CURTIS, sorry if you were offended dude. I was certainly not picking a fight with anyone, just stating my opinion based on what I thought was being said.

I saw nothing disrespectful or bully-ish about what I said, I was just making a suggestion based on my experience. Had you actually been complaining about how many hours you worked, it would be completely reasonable for me to suggest the alternative.

I have no idea what’s relevant about what time or day I decided to respond though. What does it matter what day it is? Would Monday at 5:30 sharp be better for you?

Sorry if I misunderstood your post, it seemed like you were complaining about how many hours you had to work without actually getting paid overtime. This post was about needing government to step in and save us and your comment seemed to imply that your situation was an example of why the post was right.

Perhaps I made the mistake of assuming you were responding to the post when you could of been referring to a comment someone made about long work weeks.

For the record, I disagree with any company being exempt from paying someone who worked over 40 hours overtime pay. Sorry about the misunderstanding on my part.

That our thug managers or whoever is above you in the pecking order is siphoning what you might have made, in a raise you didn’t get or bonus, into his or her bonus. Of course its impossible to prove since its all smeared out in the accounting but being captive what can anyone do about it. “Don’t like it? Then you know where the door is.”

@Brad Chafee:
Brad, I think you’ve made some extremely valid points on the debt problem in this country, however I do think that deregulation and lack of financial education had something to do with it.

Problem 1: The level of consumerism in this country is getting out of hand. We are a culture that needs ‘instant gratification’, and that mixed with the growing level of consumerism is a huge contributor to the immense amounts of consumer debt in this country. For example, if you car is still fully functioning, what is the real reason you feel the need to purchase a brand new car? Beacuse our culture puts a high value on material things.

Problem 2: The lack of financial literacy in this country is unbelievable. A vast amount of Americans do not even know how to create a basic budget. To @Brad Chafee’s earlier point, “You can’t take advantage of an educated well-informed consumer” – those consumers who knew what they could afford, knew what fit into their budgets, and were disciplined enough to stick to that amount, didn’t get ‘conned’ by these shady mortgage brokers (and yes, the problem was perpetuated by the shady mortgage brokers and shady mortgage practices within large mortgage companies). We, as Americans, need to take some responsibility of our hard earned money.

Now – that had noting much to do with G.E’s article. My take on that is simple. Whether or not you agree with the amount of hours that are worked, the amount of vacation that is alotted, etc, the fact of the matter is that working endless hours isn’t actually productive. If you’ve ever read the book ‘The Way We’re Working Isn’t Working’ by Tony Schwartz, Jean Gomes, and Catherine McCarthy Ph.D., you are familiar with the research behind these claims. If you’re not familiar with it, I highly recommend taking the time to read it – if you’re on here reading through these comments, you have at least a slight interest in the subject. Companies that encourage 60/80/120 hour work weeks are not actually getting the best out of their employees, and working longer hours does not make you a better performer. You may be doing more work, but that work is subsequently of lesser quality – our brains don’t have a 10-14 hour attention span.

We all have different priorities in life – whether we ‘live to work’ or ‘work to live’ – they are your personal priorities. If you choose to put work before your family/friends, it’s your choice. If you choose to strive to make more money, to climb the ‘corporate ladder’, etc that’s your choice. That may not be the way that I choose to live my life, but if it’s how you derrive happiness, then more power to you.

its not a choice anymore about working to live or living to work dont you get it. the majority of people are working $9-11 an hr jobs getting absolutely nowhere and HAVE TO LIVE TO WORK. WHEN ASSHOLES START PAYING LIVEABLE WAGE PEOPLE CAN HAVE SOME FREEDOM BUT THIS LITTLE WHORE SOCIETY IS TOO HEARTLESS AND MONEY HUNGRY TO DO THAT!!!

The key paragraph in this article is:
“Using data by the U.S. BLS, the average productivity per American worker has increased 400% since 1950. One way to look at that is that it should only take one-quarter the work hours, or 11 hours per week, to afford the same standard of living as a worker in 1950 (or our standard of living should be 4 times higher). Is that the case? Obviously not. Someone is profiting, it’s just not the average American worker.”
Very few comments here take up this historical perspective.
Now, I read Reader’s Digest back in the 50s (god help my soul) and every number was full of gush about labour-saving devices and the good life these promised. Lighter more enjoyable work, cleaner, healthier environment, more and better leisure. Getting better all the time. And for everybody, of course.
You’d think we’d feel the goodness if all this was the case. But we don’t, cos it ain’t.
“Labour-saving” devices have eaten jobs and increased pressure on their operators.
Work may be “lighter” in some ways, but that depends who you are and what you’re comparing. Some of our deadlier jobs (body and bone breaking, toxic, etc) have been exported, along with some of our worst old working conditions and labour relations. And these conditions of slave labour are used in the most cynical fashion to
threaten us back home.
More enjoyable work? For Google employees, maybe.
Cleaner, healthier environment – for who? In inner cities? Near nuclear waste dumps? Noise pollution, light pollution? Go for a pleasant walk around your neighbourhood, any time you feel like it? Well, the Cuyahoga River doesn’t catch fire as often now, but would you swim in it?
More and better leisure – HA. Someone mentioned better TV… Kids have a real choice out in the suburbs – drugs or the church. “I go out walking, after midnight, in the starlight…” – yup.
Getting better all the time – only today none of us feel we will have a better life than our parents did. And our parents damn sure don’t envy us!
For everybody…
Americans right now are too traumatized and terrorized by the fear-mongering propaganda fed them day in day out to think straight. They imagine that however crappy their own conditions are, everywhere else is worse, hence more frightening. The imagined threats from foreigners – aliens – are just their own fears projected on to others.
It’s a social, economic and political challenge, and needs dealing with outside “official”, established areas of debate and policy-making.
So, good luck America.
And good night.

I am not genius. I will not pretend to be. I simply found this interesting and had a few thoughts:

I think a healthy dose of personal responsibility and a pinch of gov’t regulation would be great. Family values are super important to me, much more important than the material things some use to measure standard of living. In fact, one could argue that those material things that equate to a higher standard of living are the very things that are causing us to be so overworked. It seems like we view more and more things as necessary these days… but are they really? I think this post kind of hinted at that. I also think that some of the reason people are feeling the pinch is that they simply got in over their heads by buying those things and, yea, spending money you don’t have isn’t a great idea even if banks and CC companies are trying to pull you in all the time. We do need to man up about money.

I know that these times are trying, however. As much as people would like to work less or request time off, sometimes that’s just not realistic and that makes me terribly sad, too. I’m ridiculously grateful for the opportunities I’ve had this past year. I’m even grateful for the time I’ve spent below the poverty line because it gave me perspective.

Danielle said, “I see the increase in the percentage of working mothers as positive – women contribute a tremendous amount to their families when they are happy and earning income. When women don’t have enough opportunities, that unhappiness has a huge negative effect on their children.”

Notice how this comment seems to be equating earning income with happiness. As the article states, this is part of the problem in the United States. In fact, I have personally noticed that most children in my community never get to see their parents for any real quality time any more, and instead turn to video games and gang activity. This may not be a trend all over the country, but considering the percentages within my immediate community alone, I’d say that we’re working too damned much.

Mr. Miller, thank you for this article. People can deny it all they want, but that graph is a perfect illustration of just how shafted the working Joe/Jill in America really is.

Stephanie: you are correct about the taxes. I have a PhD, I work in a large international company at an executive level and earn a very good salary. I will be able to afford a reasonable retirement. Nothing fancy but reasonable. In the US I would retire at 50 and live a cozy life.
I had several opportunities to move to the US at an equivalent position with a good salary. I decided not to – just because I prefer to have a family life and long vacations.

As for vacation; the compulsory 3 (your case I guess) to 8+ weeks (my case) are there so that some people are simply not worked out to death. Have a look at a book called “Germinal” by Emile Zola. I am sure you have in the US your fair share of pre-“compulsory paid vacation” stories.

Finally about your last point. In a world where everyone pays for himself and there is strictly no people-subsidized groups (think government, schools, hospitals, …) I agree with you. If this is not the case (and it is not neither in my country nor in yours) YOU should have to pay (a lot) if you do not want to have children. This is because someone needs to pay for current and future expenses of the country. This is your free choice, and it comes with a price tag, like everything else.
Along the same line – if a woman wants to have children, her employer should be heavily payed so that he has the slightest interest to employ women (that is you). Otherwise, in this wild world you describe you would not have a single chance to get employed as you would be more risky than a man, at equal competencies. You may always get pregnant and this would be a loss, isn’t it?

I feel that we really dotn have much to complain about compared to those that live in 3rd world countries with little resources.But I was just reading something about our taxes and how many hours a year we work to pay our taxes it like over 100 days of work .Even the poor felon makes a living wage the problems is that taxes hurt us .If I could work and actually keep that 300 dollars a week I would earn working full time hell Id be better of . I see the logic in paying taxes workmens comp ,SSI ,roads need repairing if we got invaded do you think soilder would defend us hell theyd be running we have to brainwash the youth to be killers for us where captialist god dam it .

We shouldnt die for money or to protect our ant pile .We shouldnt allow religion to flourish ,we should get rid of all that divides the masses . Create equal jobs and more equal oppurtunity .According to this article Europe is giving its women parental leave up to 20 weeks a year Holy cow .I say this is good in America lets give women homemakers benifits ,and extra bonus for cleaning the pots of pans of us men so men can have jobs and also afford to buy prettier hookers.

People tend to think that working longer hours will mean more work gets done. This is absolutely not the case. People need to work smarter. We’ve become way to bogged down with bureaucratic crap that we don’t even know what efficient means anymore.

My dad is a 61-year-old psychologist who works about 7 hours per day, 7 days per week. He takes one day off per month to recuperate and an occasional day off to do something he’d like to do, like go to a gun show or just have time with my daughter and me. He has been doing this for the past 5 years, and up until my mom started dying about 4 months ago, he was also on call every Thursday from 6pm until 12am. My boyfriend (22) and I (21) would be happy to help…if we could just find jobs.

Doesn’t anyone else find it frustrating and depressing that so many people have to work that much just to make ends meet?

sure. hell my dad missed the first 5 years of my life truck driving working like a madman and he had no choice. most people without a degree nowadays are running around like chickens with their heads cut off. they get two jobs, get sick, cant pay bills and all the while the people dont say “damn raise the wage” instead they say “why dont you spend 4-5 years and get 40,000 in debt and then maybe you can make livable wage!” ???? at 30-40-50 years old?? come on people need a time to live and some fucking opportunity. getting in debt to Maybe get a job after graduation is just a pisspoor financial decision. fuck it

@ Joesixpack
What if people have different preferences than you? Why is it about your work values? What if it is OK for some people to have a smaller house/ share with roommates? Why do you find this kind of view threatening? Are you a troll?

@joesixpack: you are obviously ignorant (not stupid, just ignorant) but no worries, though – when you realize that there is a world outside yours you will understand a lot of things.

Like, say, that some people may want to have a life outside work and spend it with their families? And that they are not the super fighter kind of people who will stand up to their management?

Or maybe, like in my case today – there was snow around Paris (lots! at lest 5 inches :)) and I decided to stay at home and work from here (not a normal thing to do)? My employer was happy as people were still working, could take care of their families (children are on one of their many vacations now) and be happy, return hopefully tomorrow happy to work and work more efficiently.

You know, the kind of things we think about when we grow older. And wiser. And think that our children are gone and we actually missed everything when they were growing up?
Listen up to “Cats in the Cradle” and you may understand why I enjoy having 42 days off over the year and spend plenty of time (no tonly “quality time”) with my kids.

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